Alright so, I’ve started doing a thing where every weekend I make time to watch a horror movie that I wasn’t interested in before, never heard of before, or otherwise passed up. I believe this will be a good way for me to expand my “horror movie fandom” and broaden my horrific horizons. I’ll write about them in this blog, and do my best to keep an open mind. This article may contain spoilers!
Alright so, people have been telling me to watch this 2005 thriller for years, but I just haven’t ever given it the time. Overall, I’m glad that I chose to watch it, but I wasn’t as thrilled with it as I have been with some of the other movies I’ve spent time on recently.
Director/writer Neil Marshall explores all kinds of fears in this film. If you’re claustrophobic, have a fear of the dark, or hate heights, you’re bound to feel some discomfort while watching this film.
However, for traditional horror fans like myself, you may find it hard to sit through the roughly forty-five minutes of crawling, climbing and conversation that happens before you ever get to see a monster.
Don’t get me wrong, this film had its positives. The time spent on character development makes it easy to feel for the group as they start to drop, and once the carnage (finally) starts, it’s fairly brutal and suspenseful.
As I stated above, this film takes awhile to start being horrifying. However, once it does take off, it stays pretty action packed up until the ending (which is sort of a twist).
If you like slow-start movies, then you will definitely want to check this one out, but for me, it was honestly just too boring for too long.
These half-bat-half-human baddies (known as “crawlers”) were by far the best part of this movie.
While they are completely blind, the “crawlers” use sound to hunt down their prey and, judging by all the bones and blood in the cavern, they do a pretty good job of it.
With the ability to climb basically any surface, it would seem that these creatures would have no problem devouring the group of spelunkers, but you will have to watch for yourself to see how that goes.
Should You See It?
If you have the time.
Again, a lot of my friends love this movie, so it’s possible that you will too. The last half-hour or so did make the film worth seeing, but I was so fatigued from waiting for the blood bath to start that I was almost too tired to enjoy it.
I would say that you should give this movie a chance on a night when you don’t have much else to do, and feel free to let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading and check out the trailer below.
Obviously, I enjoy reading about creepy things on the internet. Whether it’s real life scary stories, horror fiction or factlets about eerie things, I find myself spending hours looking for new ways to lose sleep.
The following websites are just a few suggestions for you horror fanatics out there. I find these to be bone-chillingly entertaining and if you haven’t already checked them out, I think you should.
This is a great site for raw, user-submitted stories. Recently in the news for its “connection” with a brutal stabbing, Creepypasta is probably most well known for one of its reoccurring creepy characters, Slenderman.
However, the site is home to tons of terrible tales, including parodies, traditional horror stories and stories based on true events.
This is a great site to check out on a rainy evening when you’re feeling like giving yourself a little anxiety, and if you have some stories of your own that you think would fit in, you can submit them and share your horror with the community.
This site is fantastic if you’re interested in urban legends and myths from around all of North America.
The site includes spooky campfire stories and ghost stories that you can remember for the next time you want to freak out your friends.
The best part about Americanfolklore is that it allows you to search for scary legends and stories from whichever state (or country) that you want in the North Americas.
Being from Missouri, and having a father who lives in the Ozarks, I was thrilled to see the legend of Raw Head and Bloody Bones posted on this site. It’s an extremely spooky bit of folklore and if you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely click that link.
While the lists and articles in Cracked‘s horror section still have a comedic slant to them, they are incredibly fun to waste your time with, and some of them are incredibly disturbing (which is awesome).
The horror section includes the sub-categories ZOMBIES, POP CULTURE, COSTUMES, and, the best part of all, REAL HORROR.
While it is entertaining to read about zombies and horror movies, and while I do love Halloween costumes, the REAL HORROR section is by far the most deliciously dreadful.
It contains lists about creepy things, places, murderers and a large collection of urban legends that are actually true!
Another “list site,” Listverse tends to focus a little less on comedy and a lot more on interesting facts. However, if you venture into the Creepy Archives, you’ll find lists on just about anything that a horror junkie could want to read about.
Whether you’re looking for ghost stories, real life horrible incidences, tales of horrible crimes, or accounts of creepy monster and/or demon sightings, this site has it all.
I am aware that there are many, many websites out there for horror, but I am always on the hunt for more. If you have any suggestions for sites that are similar to these, or that will make my skin crawl in general, please comment and let me know.
Alright so, I’ve started doing a thing where every weekend I make time to watch a horror movie that I wasn’t interested in before, never heard of before, or otherwise passed up. I believe this will be a good way for me to expand my “horror movie fandom” and broaden my horrific horizons. I’ll write about them in this blog, and do my best to keep an open mind. This article may contain spoilers!
I stumbled upon this blood hungry “B-movie” earlier this weekend, and I am extremely happy that I did. Writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, and director John Gulager created quite a wonderful film with their combination of dark comedy, suspense, and gore.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love monsters. The best horror films, in my opinion, have massive, hair covered, slimy beasts with more teeth than you can count, and Feastprovides just that.
This gruesome masterpiece was a result of Project Greenlight, which means that, while it is a “B-movie,” there are a few big names attached to it. Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore, and Wes Craven are only a few of those names who took part in the production of Feast.
In a dive bar in a small town, a group of misfits have their night of drinking and playing pool interrupted when a shotgun-wielding, blood-soaked man barges in and tells them to be ready to survive the night. Shortly afterwards, the kill fest begins as a family of roadkill monsters (apparently) come to feast on the group.
Ninety-five minutes of carnage, perversion and hilarity ensues as the band of bar-goers come up with plans to outlast the darkness.
Also, every new character that is introduced gets a still-frame “introduction shot” that reveals their name, occupation, life expectancy and other fun facts, and they are funny as hell.
As mentioned above, the “horror” in this film is of the best breed: fur-covered, bloody, oozy, disgusting monsters.
Like all of the best monsters in movies, these guys are extremely difficult to kill, have super strength and kill brutally and creatively.
The “Feast Beasts” have the ability to instantly reproduce and can spew a maggot-filled slime onto their victims as well… which is simply goddamn awesome.
Should You See It?
Immediately.
Feast sort of bridges the gap between Hollywood release and “B-flick,” so there is something for every horror fan here. It pretty much sums up the monster genre, while adding humor that helps break the cycle of cliches that the genre has fallen into. I definitely recommend seeing this film.
There are many reasons to learn another language. It can help you find employment, make travelling easier, and help you to make new friends from far away places.
However, the greatest reason to learn another language, in my opinion, is that it allows you to expand your knowledge of Horror literature and film.
Now, if I had the time, I would learn every language in the world for this reason. But I chose to learn Spanish, and here is why I’m glad that I did:
Julio Cortázar’s short story, La Noche Boca Arriba(The Night Face Up), is probably one of my favorite short stories of all time. It tells the story of a young man who has horrible nightmares while he is recovering from a terrible motorcycle accident. Or does it?
This story is full of psychological deception and primal fear, and is definitely worth a read. If you are not a Spanish speaker, there are, of course, translated versions.
However, translations always take away from the style of any written work, so I would recommend learning the language or reading the original alongside the translation at the very least.
Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga’s, La Miel Silvestre(The Wild Honey), is another terrifying example of primal fear. Horacio writes about a man who accidentally consumes some paralysis inducing, toxic honey while trekking through the jungle, and then the horror begins.
This tale serves as a perfect reminder that the world we live in can be just as grotesque as the fictional places and monsters that mankind has written about for centuries.
La Miel Silvestre is beautifully written in its native tongue, but if you want to read it in English, you can use Google to translate.
WARNING: Using any translating websites or software can cause errors within the text of a story, for the best accuracy, try and find a Spanish speaker to help you translate.
That freaky, masked child is brought to you by director J.A. Bayona and writer Sergio G. Sánchez in their 2007 Horror film, El Orfanato (The Orphanage).
According to a Spanish professor I had, this film wasn’t advertised as “horror” in many Spanish speaking countries. However, it definitely has an eerie feel throughout, and a few good scares.
While I don’t want to ruin anything from this magnificent movie, I will say that the ending is not only a surprise, but is quite horrific.
After viewing this film, you will probably find yourself asking the following questions: Were the ghosts real? Is this about mental illness brought on by grief? Would I be willing to play with spirits in order to find someone I care about?
This is probably the most popular Spanish horror film in the world. I love “Found Footage,” and directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza really did the genre a solid when they brought the world this delightfully dreadful flick.
Most people already know that the 2008 film Quarantinewas based directly off of this film, and according to the internet, most people tend to like the original better. I agree with “most people” on this one.
RECfollows, basically, the same story line that it’s remake did (in case you’ve only seen Quarantine). A group of people are quarantined in a building after someone gets sick (and becomes somewhat of a zombie) and they try to survive while finding out what’s going on.
It has plenty of blood, scares and creepy moments, and never gets boring.
While this film is absolutely available with English subtitles, you tend to get a better feel of the characters’ fear when you can understand what they are saying, which is just another awesome reason why you should learn Spanish.
To Sum up…
There are literally thousands of other stories, books and films written in Spanish and horror fans that don’t speak the language are missing out on all of them.
I am extremely glad that I chose to put in the work to learn Spanish, because my newly-found-ability has allowed me to open a door on an entire new room of the haunted house that is my brain. A room that is essentially a massive library full of unread books and unseen films.
I highly recommend learning to speak a second language if you also want to expand your knowledge of the world of horror, and Spanish seems to havebeen a wise place to start for me.
Alright so, I’ve started doing a thing where every weekend I make time to watch a horror movie that I wasn’t interested in before, never heard of before, or otherwise passed up. I believe this will be a good way for me to expand my “horror movie fandom” and broaden my horrific horizons. I’ll write about them in this blog, and do my best to keep an open mind. This article may contain spoilers!
After playing the video game version of this story way back when I was in Elementary School, I avoided its cinematic release for years because the whole video-game-to-movie thing hadn’t really worked out well for me in the past.
Anytime that I started to get interested in watching this movie, I made the classic mistake of reading reviews online beforehand, which were mostly negative.
However, I decided to give this movie a shot, and here are my findings:
Much like the PlayStation version, a little girl is lost in a city plagued by monsters and secrets and her parent risks their life trying to rescue her, with the help of a police officer.
Unlike the PlayStation version, the protagonist is played by the little girls (adopted) mother, which doesn’t really take away from the film (in fact, it might have been a better decision). Some names are slightly changed, and several other aspects differ, but overall the story is relatively the same.
The mother (Radha Mitchell), while taking her troubled daughter (Jodelle Ferland) to the town (Silent Hill) that she speaks of in her sleep, gets into an accident while fleeing from a police officer (Laurie Holden).
When the mother wakes up, her daughter is gone and she must (in a way) enlist the help of the officer she was running from in order to brave hell on earth to get her back.
They learn of Silent Hill’s dark past, meet its demons and discover not everything is what it seems it the desolate town.
Meh, the plot felt a little too typical for me in this one. Although there were many original moments, the whole “searching-for-a-loved-one-in-a-city-where-maybe-the-evil-isn’t-really-evil” thing tasted a little too familiar, which also made a few of the revelations seem a little too predictable.
However, Director Christophe Gans did manage to make a few mysteries stick (like the ending of the film) and what he lacked in “seat-straddling suspense” he made up for with his creative use of CGI (which I usually can’t stand) and a few monstrous moments of gore.
The “horror” in this film takes the form of fanaticism and motherly abandonment.
Oh, and also a giant demon known as Pyramid Head (pictured above) that summons hoards of creepy crawly critters and carries the biggest sword ever.
Those of us who played the video game version of this film already knew to expect Pyramid Head, he is iconic for the series (both video games and movies). And you may be thinking that no one could really do this monster any justice on screen.
However, Roberto Campanella really brings his character to life in this film and, honestly, its his performance that saved this movie for me. Although he doesn’t appear as often as I may have wanted, his screen time really kept my attention.
Those of us who are tired of “child villains” and no longer find the “creepy little girl” thing amusing can take solace in the fact that a giant, ripped demon with a gigantic metal pyramid helmet rips the entirety of someone’s skin of in a single tug in this film.
There are other monsters in the film, but none as memorable as Pyramid Head, and I am hoping to see more of him in the second film.
Rating
What? No. I’m not going to rate other people’s work, I’m no asshole. Instead, let’s do this:
Should you see it?
Yes.
I won’t lie and say it’s the best horror film I have ever watched, but if you have time, you should definitely check it out.
I intentionally left out a few parts and didn’t really discuss the ending because I believe you should watch it yourself (if you already haven’t).
The worst thing about being a Halloween fanatic is the tragic fact that the holiday of all holidays only comes once a year. However, with October being less than half a year away (146 days until Halloween!), now is the best time for fanatics like myself to start planning.
If you’re anything like me, you love the various haunted house attractions that start opening up around the witching season and you feel so drawn to them that you want to create your own place of horrific magic and wonder for your friends and neighbors to “enjoy.”
You might, however, be worried about the cost of such a monstrous creation. You may even worry that you simply don’t have the space to make your nightmare come true.
Now I’ll tell you, I’ve made a lot of VERY amateur haunts when I was a young boy, but I’ve only made one in my adult life that I feel was successful. However, the things I’ve learned from that experience have taught me that the most important thing when it comes to haunting your neighborhood is the planning.
First, decide on your “hauntspace,” that is, the area that you will be turning into your haunted house, or maze, or whatever. I chose to use the backyard of the duplex I was living in at the time. The space was very limited, but with a little planning and creativity it worked out fantastically.
Next, take measurements of your “hauntspace.” This way you will know roughly how much material you will need. The yard I used was about 40′ x 40′, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but trust me, it can work with far less space than that.
After you know how much space you have, start making rough blueprints of where you want your walls to be. This doesn’t have to be 100% perfect, but the better you do it, the easier it will be later on.
Now that you have your spooky schematics planned out, and you know exactly how your haunt should look, you can begin buying building supplies.
As I stated above, my haunt was outdoors, in a rather small backyard. Therefore, I am more of an expert on outdoor building than indoor, but the concept is about the same. If you are building outside, you will need the following:
Black zip ties, ropes, or twist ties (must be sturdy!)
I was lucky enough to have a friend who is a construction worker, who loaned me a bunch of 7 ft. T-posts. They worked fantastically and I highly recommend using them.
The black plastic sheeting will be used for your walls (and ceilings if you want to keep it dark), and the posts will be used to hold them up, which is, of course, where the zip ties come in.
It is probably a good idea to buy black duct tape in order to make repairs. I ended up having to use a Sharpie to color my duct tape (which turns purple somehow) because I didn’t think ahead.
If you’re building your haunt indoors, you won’t need the posts, because you can simply attach the plastic to the existing ceilings and floors of whatever building you are constructing your haunt in.
Use your blueprints to estimate how much plastic and how many posts you will need, and remember to always buy extra just in case!
To begin construction, use sticks, spray paint, chalk, or something along those lines to mark where your walls will be. Then, place a post on each end of every wall and at five or six feet intervals in between in order to keep your walls standing firm.
Once you know where your walls and posts will be, begin pounding the posts into the ground using your sledge hammer. The posts need to be able to withstand the wind, which the plastic will be trying to use like a sail boat, so make sure they are sturdy!
Now, roll out your plastic sheet to the distance you need for each wall and cut it. Fasten one end of the plastic, using your zip ties (or rope), and then pull the plastic tight at the opposite end of your wall and fasten it there.
Once all of the ends of each wall are fastened, go around and fasten your plastic to the middle posts (which should be at 5-6 ft. intervals).
If you use the 10 ft. wide plastic sheets, you will have enough extra to let it lay on the ground a couple of feet or so once the walls are up. I used regular tent stakes to pin theses extra flaps of plastic down, which gave my walls more stability.
This step is definitely the most strenuous, but I did the entire thing (along with the next step) on the morning of Halloween, with help from only one other person. I HIGHLY recommend starting your construction at least a day before you plan to let the world step inside of your nightmare, it will save you a lot of muscle aches and nervous breakdowns.
This is what it’s all about! It’s all up to you how you decorate your haunt. You can use themes, use only homemade decorations, or go all out and buy expensive animatronics!
I chose to do a mixture of old hand me down decorations and blowing of all my paychecks on the best animatronics Spirit had to offer (including that handsome son-of-a-bitch pictured above).
As I said, this part is entirely up to you, but I would recommend using a fog machine, strobe lights and as many gallons of fake blood as you can afford.
If you are going to have actors in your haunt, make sure their costumes fit with any themes you might have, or that they just look terrifying enough to be seen within the newly built walls of your haunt.
Final Step: Remember the Reason of the Witching Season.
Building your own haunt and reading this blog means that you are like me, you love the frightening feel of Halloween. So, it should be enough for you that your haunt might bring a few more people into our way of thinking, right?
Use this experience as a way to share the amazingness (I’m aware that that’s not a word) of Halloween with your neighborhood. Ask local kids to help you with building or decorating, allow neighbors to dress up and act in your haunt, offer candy to those who are brave enough to step foot in your creation, and most importantly, never, ever, EVER charge for entrance into your haunted attraction.
Seriously, if you want to charge people so that they may experience one of the best parts of the holiday, you are building for the wrong reasons, are a complete douche bag, and are no longer invited to Halloween.
Unfortunately, stabbings happen all the time. However, this one was far more horrible than most, and had a specific strange detail that was enough to make me fairly interested in this heinous crime.
The victim was a 12-year-old female who was lured into the woods by two other 12-year-olds, her “friends,” and was brutally stabbed 19 times.
The young victim not only survived this attack by crawling to her own rescue, but is in stable condition in a local hospital.
Now, obviously this is awful news, and I in no way find this particular type of horror satisfying or entertaining, but there is a certain aspect to this crime that is not only creepy as hell, but raises some important questions to the “horror community.”
You see, the suspects, who may be charged as adults and face up to 65 years in prison, claimed they stabbed their “friend” in order to please Slenderman.
Fans of online horror writing and, specifically, creepypasta.com will know that Slenderman is a popular fictitious horror character represented by a suit clad, faceless man in a black suit (and sometimes back tentacles).
Slenderman appears when something awful happens and exists only in the peripherals. However, he is also entirely made up (despite what some conspiracy theorists may believe).
The fact that these preteens believed in the online bogeyman enough to attempt a murder in his name has posed several questions about horror fiction that have the media talking.
Absolutely not. However, I’m sure there are plenty of people who believe that the site should hold some blame, or at least that’s what the media is making it sound like.
I would love to go into a long-winded discussion about how fiction should never be blamed for reality, but creepypast said it best in their statement on the stabbings.
If you clicked on that link and took the time to read the statement (which I hope you did), you may have noticed this line, which sort of sums it all up for me:
“Unless you’re okay with blaming the world’s ills on Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft, I don’t believe that it makes sense to say paranormal writing or an interest in the macabre should be blamed or even used as an indicator of a “sick” person […]”
This statement says it all, but also alludes (possibly unintentionally) to the fact that Stephen King himself was a victim of accusations when his book titled Rage was quoted by a gunman during a school shooting. King, although just another victim, decided to pull the novel because of the guilt he felt.
The subject on the radio, where I first heard of the “Slenderman Stabbing” seemed to be that parents should do a better job at monitoring what their kids view on the internet, but let’s think about that for a minute.
We live in a country where the internet is literally everywhere. It’s on computers, on phones, on tablets, hell, it’s on televisions. So it’s not really difficult for someone to get some alone time with the web.
Also, given the things that I was in to when I was 12, I don’t think my parents would’ve really given a second glance to online horror fiction.
So, Who do we Blame?
The two would-be-killers that stabbed their “friend” 19 times.
You may say “they’re just kids! We can’t blame them!” but you would be oh, so wrong. These “kids” had something wrong with them to begin with, and horror fiction didn’t cause it.
I’ve mentioned before that I have always been interested in the scary and macabre, and I do mean always. I enjoyed scary posters, toys and pictures LONG before I was old enough to read horror stories or enjoy horror movies. Therefore, I think it’s obvious that I enjoy going to horror sites and reading online scary stories because of who I am, not because these sites made me type their content into Google for the first time, which of course, made me obsessed with horror.
What I’m getting at here is that these “kids” already knew what they wanted to look at/read, and it’s because they already had an interests in horrible things, only in a not-so-healthy way.
I hate the idea of children being tried as adults, and I hate thinking of 12-year-olds spending their whole life in prison. But these 12-year-olds, maybe one of them more than the other, seem to be sick, and people who are sick in that way simply cannot be free to hang around other children.
As I entered the museum, I instantly realized that I was the only person touring at that particular time, which I originally thought was fantastic. However, a few strange sounds and eerie exhibits into it, I found myself incredibly relieved to see more people entering.
I took a lot of pictures (I asked for permission, don’t worry), but there was simply too many fantastic exhibits to capture them all. Please enjoy the images below and if you are interested in the history of the museum and its founder, George Glore, click here.
The First Floor
The first floor of the museum only had a small section of exhibits. However, the feeling of cold and the emptiness of the building really set the tone for the displays that awaited me on the upper floors.
Original Staircase
This was the original staircase for the hospital when it was operational. However, according to a note hung near the exhibit (not pictured) it was moved to this location for display.
Now, I know that this staircase is just a historical exhibit, but my “writer’s brain” (which was quite nervous at the time) took it as a metaphor.
I imagined a hopelessly ill mental patient of the past, constantly climbing the staircase of treatment, only to find a blank, white wall blocking his path to full recovery.
But hey, that’s just me.
The Second Floor
This floor was quite a bit more exciting/horrifying than the first. Not only did I get to see the darker side of patient care past, but I was (un)fortunate enough to come face to face with a man with quite a terrible story to tell.
Enter Phineas Gage, the man who accidentally discovered lobotomies:
Quite a looker.
You see, Mr. Gage was a railway worker… who had a little accident.
Ouch
This accident was caused when a dynamite explosion forced a 13 1/4 pound metal rod (replica pictured below) through Gage’s skull!
Step aside, Vlad.
Poor Mr. Gage, though surviving the injury, suffered massive trauma to his frontal lobe and, as anyone who has taken a psych 101 class will tell you, that has consequences.
Gage suffered from bouts of rage and violent mood swings for the rest of his life, which led to him saying:
“Despite all my rage, I’m still just Phineas Gage.”
After shaking off the shock of Mr. Gage’s ordeal, I found myself intrigued by this lovely display of art:
Yummy
As I read the description of this display, I instantly realized that it was way more delicious than I had previously thought.
That’s because, all of the items in this picture were removed from a single patients stomach. Nice.
The items include, but are not limited to, nails, thimbles, coat hooks and buttons.
Next I traveled down what I like to call the “Hall of Horrors,” which was a hallway filled with terrifying recreations of past treatments, which led to a very large room, filled with even more dreadful devices.
Here we have an example of electroshock therapy, demonstrated by two somewhat-faceless horrors, which was used as a common treatment for mental patients:
Shock Therapy
And here is an actual machine used to perform these shock treatments: (if you look on top you can see a rubber biting “block”)
Shock Machine
Next, I saw a fever cabinet, which was used to treat syphilis buy warming a patient up with hot light bulbs inside of some kind of medical iron maiden:
I’ve got the fever!
Here, I got to learn about trepanation, which is the art of removing a piece of the skull in order to relieve pressure on the brain.
Trepanation Model
Here are some trepans, which are the tools used to bore the bones inside a patents head:
Trepans
As you can see, the one on the very top is just a rock. Apparently, the practice of trepanation is fairly old.
Finally, I was in the giant room of doom, and here is what it had to offer:
Witch Burning
Solitary Confinement
This Guy
And finally:
The Devil’s Treadmill
Ok, so it wasn’t really called that. It was, however, used to help someone “walk off” their mental disorder.
There were MANY more things to see on this floor, a lot of them very creepy, but if you want to see them, you need to brave this museum on your own.
The Third Floor
This floor was mainly about the “lighter” side of treatment. It featured things such as art therapy, music therapy, work therapy and religious therapy.
There really wasn’t too much in the way of “horror” on this floor, except for this:
Patients Doll
This doll (which is pretty close to life-sized) was made by a patient with schizophrenia. It was intended to be a self portrait of sorts, so….yeah…
The Basement
This part was basically as small as the first floor, but way, way spookier.
While it was mostly just old agricultural equipment, it also contained the morgue:
Meat Drawers
And of course, an autopsy room:
You ok?
The End
Thanks for checking out this post. I really recommend that, if you liked what I presented, you check out the Glore Psychiatric Museum. It’s located in St. Joseph, Missouri, at 3406 Frederick Avenue.
Don’t go alone if you don’t do well around unpleasant sights.
As a horror fan, it should be incredibly obvious that I love horror movies. What might make me somewhat different from most horror fans though, is that I am a HUGE fan of the “Found Footage” sub-genre of horror filmography. The hand-held camera style filming, the unrecognized actors and the pure grittiness of these films make them much more believable, and much more original than their big budget counter parts.
Below, I have compiled a list of some must see “found footage” films. They have been placed in descending rank order, so that the films that I believe are the best are found at the bottom.
If you want to learn more about these films, click on their respective images. Enjoy the list and feel free to comment!
I’m sure fans of this Norwegian masterpiece will argue that it should be lower on the list, but in all fairness this film is only semi-horror, and mostly just kind of a creepy action film.
When a group of film students attempt to make a documentary about troll hunters, they find out that their skepticism was very unwarranted.
In a kind of beautiful way, the students get to discover the true nature of the grotesque looking trolls, while learning who the real monsters are.
This film is great because of its originality, even in such a novel sub-genre. It has monsters (trolls) and a few scares, but overall just isn’t quite a horror film.
This film is shot in a kind of “docudrama” format, with several pieces of “found footage” used to add intensity and mystery.
It tells the story of a family’s attempt to understand the death of one of their loved ones, both how it happened and (more importantly) why it happened.
While there aren’t very many scares in this film, the realistic style of shooting and the spooky ambiance of it make Lake Mungo a must see for fans of mystery and the paranormal.
Obviously, this film is a classic must for horror films. It has ghosts, jump scares, a creepy atmosphere and plenty of twisted images to make your skin crawl.
However, the abomination that was Grave Encounters 2 ruined the way I see the film, which is why it is so high on the list. I still highly recommend seeing the first film though, just avoid the second like the plague.
Grave Encounters takes us along with a group of paranormal investigators as they lock themselves into an abandoned (and thoroughly haunted) psychiatric hospital. The tagline of the film says it all: “They were searching for proof. They found it.”
Although I am not usually a big fan of alien/UFO movies, this one, and the next one on this list, are big exceptions. The Fourth Kind has plenty of terrifying moments and shocking revelations to keep it entertaining, and the best part is it’s based on a freaking true story.
Ok, so they embellished it a little, but still.
Milla Jovovich plays psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, who uses hypnosis to find out what exactly has gotten the town of Nome, Alaska so freaked out.
The “real” footage peppered into this thriller will make you sleep with your lights on.
The movie itself will make you cringe every time you hear a “hoot” at night, and will possibly make you want to punch an owl in the beak.
Again, I’m usually not a big fan of alien horror, but if you were to tell me you found the lost tapes from some astronauts that showed horrific alien attacks and spooky settings, of course i would love it.
That’s the deal with this film, it claims to tell the story of why we never went back to the moon, and if it wasn’t just a work of fiction I would write to the president asking him to nuke that big hunk of cheese right out of the sky.
The thought of being alone, isolated in space already rattles the nerves enough as it is, but throw in a little bit of space bugs crawling in your clothes and you’ve got Apollo 18. Horrifying stuff.
This is a modern take on a classical tale. Something gigantic, unnatural and destructive has found its way into New York, and nothing we try seems to stop it.
Ok, so it’s basically the American version of Godzilla, but that is sort of the point.
This creature of unknown origin smashes its way through sky scrapers as our protagonists/film crew try to escape. Say what you will about this monster flick, it has a lot more to it than you might think. If you search for Cloverfield secrets, you’ll see what I mean.
This film is a must see if you love monsters, and I LOVE monsters, like, a lot.
What do you do when things around your house start moving and you hear strange sounds in the night? Get out the video camera of course!
If you haven’t seen any of the films in this series yet, you may want to start by watching with the lights on. There are plenty of jump scares and spooky moments to make your bones rattle.
More importantly, the nifty effects, camera tricks, and creativity used to make this film work will make you want to break out your cell phone camera and try making a horror film of your own.
This film really sets the stage for “found footage” demon flicks. Currently, there are five of these movies (Paranormal Activity-Paranormal Activity 4 and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) and the fifth is set to come out this October.
With this many sequels, you may assume that the films have gone down in quality over time, and you would be correct. However, the way all of the films have tied together has really given me a few “A-HA!” moments (I just watch The Marked Ones last night).
The movie uses “found footage” along with traditionally filmed material to walk a viewer through the final moments of a group of young documentary filmmakers who disappeared while on a mission to film Amazon cannibal tribes.
Don’t worry, this isn’t just 96 minutes of constant torture, there is actually a decent plot and a great twist. Watch it, but not while you’re eating.
This is the film that revolutionized the sub-genre of “found footage.” Much like Cannibal Holocaust (above), many people who saw this film when it was new back in 1999 completely believed they had actually witnessed the events portrayed, and for good reason.
The cast of this film were not only great actors, they were extremely dedicated to making their disappearance seem as real as possible. They even made and distributed “missing” posters of themselves prior to the film’s release. But that’s not all.
The director of this film constantly kept the actors in character by scaring them and filming it, and the cast was actually lost several times during filming!
As I mentioned above, I love monsters. More than ghosts, vampires and definitely aliens, I find a big hairy beast in the woods to be one of the scariest things there is, and this movie has them.
More than just monsters, this movie has something that is incredibly important to horror films: subtlety.
The monsters in this film start as just a possibility, then they are a quick glance in the background, then everything goes crazy as hell.
This movie is a little lesser known, which is awful because it has got to be one of my favorite films of all time.
It tells a familiar story (with a unique twist) of young people camping in the woods, and one of them just so happened to bring a camera. It begins very eerily and slowly grows into something incredibly action packed.
I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea what is going on at the end of this movie (and I have seen it a lot) but it leaves you thinking that there will probably be a sequel, and you crave it like heroine.
The special effects in this film are very good for B grade movie, and the suspense is ridiculously perfect.
I don’t think there will ever be a “found footage” film that will be as amazing as the VHS films. They have everything: monsters, killers, zombies, ghosts, demons, cults, and vampires (or maybe some kind of gargoyle).
These films are actually a series of short films directed by different directors (somewhat like, and including directors from, The ABCs of Death), and all filmed “found footage” style.
These “mini films,” if you will, are held together by a subplot (also filmed by handy cam) that all ties together throughout the first and second film.
That may sound confusing, but trust me, it’s worth it to check these out.
Also, while I was searching for the image to use for this list I stumbled upon the news that the third VHS film is soon to be released. I immediately peed myself in excitement, cleaned up, and then came back to the computer to watch the trailer, just to pee myself from excitement all over again.
Here it is, enjoy:
Mmmmm, so good. As of yet there is no release date, but you can bet your horror loving heart that I will see it the second it is released and blog about it.
The “found footage” sub-genre, though not as well funded or advertised as the A list Hollywood films, is an incredible, horrifying, creative take on the horror genre. If you aren’t a fan of these types of films as of yet, please give a few more of them a try.
There are many, many more terrifyingly awesome “found footage” films out there, but these are my favorites for now. In the future I am sure I will be writing about more of them. Thanks for reading.
B.G.'s Horror Blog 